#bloodiedwolf

          “Never really got the allure of SWORDS.”

it’s winter in the eye, and like ophelia    --    mary jo bang

The  sun  does  not  dare  yet  touch  the  skies  and  she  wants  him  awake    ?   Determined,    steadfast,    light  kicks  into  his  side  are  ignored.    No,    he  doesn’t  want  to  wake  yet    !    If  he  is  to  have  resolve  for  one  thing,    it  shall  be  for  his  own  comfort.    Eyes  scrunch  closed,    teeth  grit  together.    She  cannot  leave  without  him,    he  cannot  wake  up.    He  would  have  another  hour’s  sleep  yet    !

he’s EXCEPTIONALLY tired. -- immensely exhausted. cloth is wrapped around his right arm and pressed to his stomach. he holds a SWORD by his side. he stares at the ground as he keeps limping. he doesn’t know how long he’s been walking. how dried the BLOOD covering his face and body must be. he’s not sure, but he thinks he’s lost all feeling in his LEGS. the cloth presses against a wound that has surely been open for days. it wasn’t particularly a very SMALL wound, either. he finds a stream and he only hopes it will... help him. he slumps onto his knees. he looks down at the cloth, unsure of whether or not he should try to take pressure off the wound. his fingers SHAKE by the thought alone. but he hears something. his head SNAPS, making direct eye contact with... a kid. is this someone else’s stream? he looks down, clearly questioning that. he can’t take this from other people. he can’t.

     there’s no good that can come from rising to the bait. she’s half a mind – three-fourths of a mind, a whole mind – to make as though she hadn’t heard, to stop her ears and keep her heart stone. ( he was never her friend for true then, and he isn’t her friend for true now, and that’s all, arya tells herself – but something else answers back. might be just the one part’s true – might be having saved his life not once but twice, now, makes her responsible for it, or at least until they part ways somewhere. her jaw works, in spite of herself, tightening a notch.)

     there’s no good that can come, for either of them, from her rising to the bait. she ought to keep her ears stopped, her tongue still, her brow unfurrowed, her heart stone, yet –

                   ‘ what woods? ’

     seven hells.

    the furrow in her brow deepens, eyes moving hard and wary to his face.

                   ‘ – … did you remember something? ’

     godsdamnit. bait, risen to. fuck.

        He knows she’s there, but when—within—he tries to grasp the falling scraps of faces and their attached memories which he has shed before ( remnants which were fine as they were until they gathered into a thick coating which lined his body, somehow coagulating into a sense of urgency, a need to be recognized, when he saw the girl whom he hadn’t seen for years ) for a half moment forgets where he is and whom he’s with. It’s not lack of mind so much as infatuation with what may be inside of him, something he had never before tried—or been able—to look at. Perhaps when he was younger he tried to find himself, when he was a boy, but those years are long gone. Now he’s trying again, but his mind is not allowing him to gather much at a time. Every time a memory flashes before his mind, he’s unsure as to whether it’s a man’s memory or the memories of the men whose faces he has taken before.  

        The woods were cold. Quiet. Dark.

        He intones the words as if reciting a prayer, and while he can see the densely-packed forest before him, he cannot see beyond the blurred shapes of the trees—

        When Arya ( she must have chosen a new name, a man thinks ) inquires about the scenery, he turns to look at her. What concentration may have been draped across his features moments ago comes and goes like the lapping waves of the sea, and once again his face is customarily calm and tinged with a hint of kindness. He won’t let her in just yet; he won’t allow himself to search too deeply within his psyche when right in front of her. ( She’s the one who’s not ‘supposed’ to trust him, yet he’s the one following her lead. Again, a vicious cycle that will have to eventually be broken by one of the two. )

        His shoulders rise and fall slightly, and he’s tempted to chuckle ( as if he could remember his memories clearly within weeks of being alone and grappling with his new position as a relatively normal human being ) but he still remains impassive. Her curiosity is worth noting—not worth chiding. 

“YOU’RE SAYING it’s not my fight and I respect that. Your honesty, your bluntness, I respect those, too. Arya, I can choose my battles.” It’s what he does, isn’t it? Pick up his weapons once a target is in sight. Pick up his weapons and fight. Relentlessly. Lisbeth can attest to it. “Let me help. I can.”